


his eyes are such a fright

by jellyfishes



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Garden State!AU, M/M, and abuse, no werewolves here, this is pretty au though, uh there are mentions of isaacs dad dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-15 14:10:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/850465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishes/pseuds/jellyfishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m Scott by the way,” the guy says, offering his hand out to shake and Isaac is almost done with the forms and he looks up and smiles because it’s polite.</p>
<p>“Isaac.”</p>
<p>“Nice to meet you Isaac,” Scott says, grinning like Isaac is the best person he’s ever met in his life. “At the shrink’s office.” He laughs. “What are you here for anyway, no to be like, nosy or anything. Man, I’m really nosy.”</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>garden state!au where Isaac tries to fix himself, but ends up getting fixed by someone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	his eyes are such a fright

**Author's Note:**

> title is from 'disco biscuit love' by the jezabels

Isaac isn’t really used to being wrenched from sleep at the crack of dawn. He usually lets himself sleep in until midday, and even then, he’s had _Sleep Cycle_ installed for a few weeks now—it was definitely worth the .99c—and he’s grown accustomed to the tinkling music that gently coaxes him awake everyday. And the shrill ring tone that’s blaring through his mobile is a pretty far cry from that.

He answers before he can check caller ID, and it’s Camden on the other end of the phone. His brother doesn’t even have to say anything and Isaac knows it’s him because of the heavy sigh and the pause while he waits for Isaac to speak. But that’s not really a thing that he’s going to do—particularly this early in the morning—so he lets the silence drag on. “Hey bro,” Camden finally says and he’s not got that false chipper voice on like he usually does when he’s trying to get through to Isaac. His voice is strained and clipped and Isaac pulls the phone away from his ear and flicks speaker on before setting it down on his bedside table and rolling back over in bed to face the ceiling.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Isaac asks. His curtains are open and his room is lit mostly in white. He actually has no idea how he manages to sleep through the harsh sunlight every morning until noon.

Camden is stuttering over whatever he’s trying to say and he’s skipped the awkward pleasantries that usually take up the first few minutes of their phone calls (which have been getting more and more sporadic because it’s not like Isaac is ever the one to initiate them) so Isaac figures there’s actually something wrong and that’s why he’s calling in the first place. “Spit it out Cam,” Isaac mutters quietly and he’s not even sure it’s picked up by the speakerphone.

But then his brother is taking a shaky breath and saying, “Dad died last night.”

He’s pretty sure Camden is still talking but there’s a rushing in Isaac’s ears and he doesn’t want to do anything but roll over away from the window and close his eyes and his whole body feels like it’s maybe sinking into the bed and if he concentrates hard enough he’s sink through the floorboards and into the earth and end up somewhere close to the core where it’s so fucking hot he can’t help but _feel it_.

But instead, all he’s got is this distinct lack of sadness and that’s surely not right. He should be able to feel sad when he finds out his father’s just died (even if he was a pretty crappy father most of the time), but all he can feel is this throbbing in his fingers and he’s eighty percent certain that that’s only there because he slammed them in the fridge last night—nothing to do with sadness at all actually.

“Isaac? _Isaac!_ ” Camden is shouting through the phone now and Isaac attempts to focus on the voice rather than the muffled buzzing that’s pounding against his eardrums.

“Yeah,” he gasps out, still curled up away from the phone. “Yeah, what?”

“The funeral’s in three days.” There’s an unspoken invitation to attend there and Isaac is almost tempted to ignore it—doesn’t really feel anything close to a desire to attend the funeral. But somewhere deep down, he knows that it’s the right thing to do. His family doesn’t expect much of him anymore, but to skip out on his dad’s funeral might be stretching the limits of his ability to dodge family commitments.

He takes a deep breath, presses the heels of his hands into the sockets of his eyes until everything’s black but for the splotches of artificial light that make colours dance on the inside of his eyelids. “I think there’s a train tomorrow,” he says quietly. Shouldn’t take more than eight hours for me to get back to you guys.”

He thinks he hears Cam sigh in relief and he thinks he feels bad for a second because maybe his brother actually expected that he wouldn’t rock up to his dad’s funeral. “That’s good,” he says. “Good, yeah, I’ll—I’ll see you then kiddo.”

Isaac hates that—that his brother still treats him like the kid who was too scared to protest when he shovelled the broccoli he didn’t want to eat onto Isaac’s plate and grinned when his dad wouldn’t let him leave the table before he finished it. He doesn’t say anything after that, just lets Camden hang up with a promise to see him soon. He doesn’t say anything about being glad that Isaac is coming or whether it means anything and Isaac wonders if maybe it wouldn’t matter if he doesn’t bother turning up.

 

/

 

He calls Lydia because they’ve both got the day off from the call centre where they work together and he usually wouldn’t. They have this unspoken rule about calling each other because the last thing either of them want on their day off is to hear a fucking phone ring. But he figures that they’ve reached a point in their unlikely friendship where he can breach the rule when circumstances force it.

“I have to go home for a bit,” he says into the receiver and he can picture the way her eyebrows fly up to her hairline. Her voice is still a little cracked from sleep and he guesses that he’s woken her up the same way Camden did him. But it’s past one in the afternoon and he can’t really find it in him to feel bad about it. Coffee has put him in a shitty mood and he’s strung out, his foot tapping against his coffee table, jostling the empty pizza box that’s been there for three days a little further away with each tap.

“You better have a good excuse,” she says and he practically can hear the stretch in her voice. The phone crackles for a minute and he figures she’s probably rolling over in bed. “Jackson asked for the day off to spend some time with his little sister last weekend and Peter cracked the proper shits—I think there were threats that involved gonad removal.”

Isaac feels the corner of his mouth lift in a tiny smile and rubs a hand through his hair, can feel his fingernails scratching against his skull. “Are you sure you _heard_ that or did Jackson personally tell you when he was cooking you dinner the other night?”

Lydia’s silence speaks more than her words ever could and Isaac is actually grinning when he tells her that he’s got to go home for his dad’s funeral. And that’s wrong on so many levels—that he gets more emotional teasing his friend about her budding relationship than he does over the fact that he’s going to be burying his dad in a few days.

“ _Shit_ , Isaac, are you okay?” she asks and the laughter in her voice from a second ago is gone completely, her tone laced with concern. It’s sort of endearing—how motherly Lydia gets at times.

He nods against the receiver, breathes a, “Yes,” into the phone and tells her that he’s planning on the train that leaves his station at noon.

“Don’t be stupid,” Lydia says. “You should fly back. You don’t need to sit on a train alone with your thoughts for hours. You’ll just end up depressed and dreading it all.” Isaac almost laughs at that, but he holds it in—doesn’t bother telling her that the river of meds he’s on won’t let him feel anything at all either way. When she gets an idea in her head, there’s no stopping her, so there’s no use in even trying. She’s talking now about booking a flight and what time he wants to leave and he doesn’t reply, but it doesn’t seem to matter to her. “I’ll pick you up at eight tomorrow to take you to the airport,” she says.

He agrees, and mumbles something about having to go and pack—hangs up before she gets a chance to say goodbye. He’s got a headache, but by the time he’s in the kitchen for paracetamol, it’s gone. He takes two anyway because he’s finding it hard to fall asleep in his whitewashed room and the pills make it a little easier.

 

/

 

He’s imagining the plane going down before it even takes off.

He imagines the screaming and the panic, the crushing fear blooming in the eyes of the young woman sitting next to him as she thinks about the boyfriend that she’s on the way to visit, how she’s not going to see him ever again. He thinks the old man on his other side would be praying, fingers white with how hand they’re gripping onto the shaking armrests.

The lights would flicker, everything cast in a fluorescent blue light. The right wing would dip and he’d be wrenched to the side, his seatbelt digging into abdomen and forcing the air out of his lungs with an ugly wheeze.

Maybe the voice of the pilot would come on over the loudspeaker, asking the passengers to remain calm, voice laced with a poorly disguised terror—the sound distorted and gritty. No one would be listening anyway. He thinks about the tears. About the final words. Weighs up his chances of survival. They’d have to be less than one percent where he’s sitting—nowhere near one of the glowing exit signs.

If the plane goes down, he will go down with it and that’ll be it.

He doesn’t feel anything at all.

 

/

 

Camden is there to pick him up from the airport and Isaac doesn’t remember letting him know that he’d be flying in, but Lydia is nothing if not diligent and he wouldn’t put it past her to have threatened his brother over the phone about making sure he doesn’t have to get a _cab_ to his own home.

“How are you going?” Cam asks when the two of them are in the car. They’re halfway home and the radio is playing crappy pop music, but it’s just background noise. Isaac thinks they’ve only passed about one other car on the highway and it’s probably got something to do with the rain. No one likes driving at over ninety when it’s bucketing down. It feels like the wheels are going to slip off the road, especially in Cam’s beat up old shit box.

“I’m okay,” Isaac says because there’s not much else he can really say, is there? Okay—when there’s no up and down there’s always a middle ground that he can fall back on.

His brother indicates out of an exit and fucks the clutch a little bit when he tries to change gears. “You sure?” he asks. “Because you know you can tell me Isaac. It’s okay to ask for help.” It’s nice that he’s asking, even if he’s only doing it because he has to.

“I don’t really know what to say,” he mutters finally and Camden sighs.

“Yeah, me either.”

They’re silent for the rest of the trip. Cam gets sick of the crappy radio and ends up flicking it off about ten minutes before they turn into Isaac’s old street. So it’s just the two of them and the rain, the squeak of the windscreen wipers as they scrape against the windshield and the precarious grip of the tires on the bitumen.

Cam waits until he’s pulling up the drive to speak again. “You’ve got your old room,” he says. “Stay as long as you want, okay? I know it can take some time.”

“Yeah,” Isaac says. “My flight was one way anyway so it’s pretty open about when I go back. I might hang around for a few days after the funeral.”

Cam’s eyes are sad when he shrugs, popping the boot and hauling Isaac’s suitcase onto the wet drive. Isaac can feel the rain soaking into his skin already and he’s been living in hot weather for too long—isn’t used to being this freezing because he feels like the cold has invaded his blood stream and is slowly feeding itself into his body. “You can stay for longer than that,” Cam says. “Doesn’t have to be only a few days.”

They’re standing in the doorway of Isaac’s old room and it looks the way it always has, one of the cupboard doors on his empty wardrobe hanging open. There’s a _Hot Wheels_ poster on the wall and a post card of _The Beatles_ covering a rip in the wallpaper that he doesn’t think anyone else knows is there. “Thanks,” Isaac says. It’s sort of a dismissal and Camden knows it, drops Isaac’s suitcase on the floor and tilts his head at him.

“Funeral’s tomorrow morning,” he says finally. “I booked you in at the psychologist on Monday. My girlfriend is doing a placement there so I could get you in on short notice.” He scratches the back of his neck and Isaac raises an eyebrow at him. “Just figured it would be good to talk to someone. I mean—I’m not really good with words and talking. I know you’re on some meds too, right?”

“Thanks,” Isaac says again and the one word answers seem to be working because Camden bites his lip and shrugs a bit, pulling the door closed behind him. Isaac can hear his feet falling on the stairs. He sits on the edge of his bed and looks at the faded poster above his dresser—wonders if maybe he’ll cry tomorrow at the funeral—decides he probably won’t.

 

/

 

Isaac is on the way back from the funeral in a taxi when he gets a text from Cam asking him to pick up matches on the way to the wake. Apparently his girlfriend thinks it’s important that there are lit candles around the photo display of his father. Isaac thinks it’s bound to be a little tacky, but he’s not really got the authority to argue with his brother’s girlfriend who seems to know his dad better than he has for the past few years.

_on it._ he texts back and asks the taxi driver to pull into the next gas station that is empty but for a young couple who are standing outside the car trying to work out how to fit the pump into the car.

“I’ll just be a second,” Isaac says to the cab driver and gets a raised eyebrow in return. He rolls his eyes. “I’ll pay you to wait,” he says impatiently, closing the door a little harder than necessary before jogging inside the store. It’s raining again and honestly, it wouldn’t be autumn in Beacon Hills without the incessant drizzle, but it’s taking some getting used to.

The gas station is warm inside and Isaac is assaulted with a wave of weariness. He could honestly curl up in the corner and sleep, but it’s probably not the best idea to skip out on his own dad’s funeral. So he approaches the counter and gestures for the cashier to pass him one of the lighters that they keep behind the counter now. “Doesn’t matter what colour,” he says, already digging into his pocket for some change.

“Fucking hell,” says the cashier and when he looks at her properly he recognises her. Her hair is cut shorter now and hidden mostly under the corny cap that must be uniform. He’s pretty sure Erica Reyes wouldn’t be caught dead with her hair squished under a hat any other day. “You’re looking pretty smart Isaac.”

Isaac smiles at her because it’s impossible not to return the grin that’s lighting up her face. “Hey,” he says, eyes apologetic for not recognising her at first—for not caring enough to look properly at the person he was talking to over the counter.

“What are you even doing back here?” Erica asks, ringing up the lighter and eyeing him. “Smoking kills,” she says and he smiles.

“I promise it’s for candles,” Isaac says and he’s about to tell her that he has to go because said candles need to be lit before he gets yelled at by a stressed out girlfriend of his brother who he hasn’t even properly met yet, only seen as she cried as they put the casket in the ground. But she’s speaking too quickly for him to keep up.

“Hey, there’s a rave tonight if you’re up for it,” she says and Isaac is transported back to high school for a second when he used to go out with Erica on the weekends, sneak into parties that weren’t meant for them and get trashed until they couldn’t feel anything. Back then it had been a novelty. “Shit, we haven’t been out in forever. How long has it been? Five years?”

“Six,” Isaac says. And he’s remembering the day he turned eighteen and left the small town without looking back.

“That’s mental.” She pulls the cap off her head and rearranges her ponytail before tugging it back onto her head. There’s a stray piece of hair hanging in front of her eyes and she clicks her tongue at it, trying to shove it under the cap before she looks back up at him. “I don’t get off for a few hours, but I can pick you up on my way. You staying at your old place?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, look, sounds good, but I have to go. I’ve got—I have my dad’s wake and I’m kind of being a terrible host.”

He’s relieved when she doesn’t tell him she’s sorry. He hates that—hates the fake sincerity. People only say they’re sorry when they’re not actually hurting themselves, when they only feel bad because it’s awkward now that they’re aware of someone else’s grief. Sorry doesn’t help. Her eyes get a bit sad though and she says, “That’s heavy, man.”

He shrugs and hands her the coins that have been getting warm in his palm. “See you tonight?” he asks and she nods.

“Yep!” He’s halfway to the door when Erica calls out after him. “If you need anything, just—” she holds her hand up to her ear to signal to call her and he grins, nodding. The smile feels weird on his face, but he doesn’t question it, just lets himself slip into what he’s used to. Erica always used to make him smile. It would be wrong to stop now.

 

/

 

It’s dark in the club and Isaac has pretty much forgotten who he’s buying drinks for. He thinks the dark haired girl standing in front of him is Allison—Erica introduced him to her in the line to the club and hopped into line right behind her, which pissed about twenty people off until they realised how attractive she was.

“Vodka and coke please,” Allison says and Isaac hands the money over, paying for her drink as well as his own shot of tequila. And he barely has time to swallow it before Erica is dragging him onto the dance floor, right into the throng of the people and her fingers are hot and sticky around his wrist. She’s got a proper hold on him and doesn’t let go when they reach a space where they have enough room to properly dance, to get their hands all over each other.

And it’s never going to mean anything—it never has with Erica. There’s some sort of understanding there, a level of trust that Isaac is never going to want to take it any further than his fingers digging into her hip bones as she presses her back against his chest.

“You’ve still got moves, Lahey,” she says, grinning up at him, and he smiles back, licking his tongue against the back of his teeth and tasting tequila there.

Allison finds them two songs later and by this time, Isaac’s shirt is sticking to his skin a little bit with sweat and his head feels light and Erica’s hair is messed up at the back and her eye makeup is smudged out around her eyes. Then again, maybe that’s a _thing_ now and she’s done it on purpose.

“You want this?” Allison asks, taking Isaac’s hand and pressing a pill into his palm. He nods, ducking his head to press his hand against his mouth and dry swallow back the tiny pink pill. “Cheers,” Allison says with a grin and Isaac wonders for a second if taking drugs will mess with his meds, but he doesn’t really care. Really, he just wants to see if the mottled pink disco biscuit will make him feel something.

Instead, he ends up throwing up in the disabled toilet half an hour later, Erica’s hand on his back and Allison’s in his hair. “Sorry babe,” she says. “You should have told me you were already dead to the world on a bunch of meds. I wouldn’t have given it to you.”

Isaac smiles up at her because she means well and it’s not her fault that he’s having some shitty reaction to the drug that he willingly popped. “It’s okay,” he says quietly before he starts hacking his guts up again. It’s just alcohol that’s coming up, really, and he leans his head against the toilet bowl that is blessedly cool—tries to ignore the way Erica wrinkles her nose at that.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s get you home.”

 

/

 

Isaac is early for his appointment the next day and his brother’s girlfriend, Lacey, isn’t around—must be in a consult with the psych or something. There are forms to fill out though. The receptionist hands them to him over the counter along with a pen and says, “Make sure you’re accurate when filling out the bit about the drugs,” and Isaac bites his lip and takes the clipboard with the brightly coloured slips of paper towards one of the chairs in the large waiting room.

There’s only one other person in there and he’s got his head buried in a book on the other side of the room, iPod plugged into his ears while he taps his foot against the side of the chair.

Isaac pulls out his phone at some stage because he’s got a list of the drugs on there and it’s a bit sad really, that he’s on so much that he has to keep a list. But he’s got a psychiatrist in Florida who seems to think that making sure he doesn’t feel anything will be a whole lot better than feeling sad. And it’s been so long that Isaac’s sort of forgotten what it feels like to be sad. When he looks up from his phone, the guy across the room is looking up at him. “First time?” he asks and Isaac raises an eyebrow. “First time at a shrink I mean,” the guy says, standing up from where he’s sitting and hopping up onto a chair a few seats away from Isaac. Maybe he’s one of those people who has weird things about personal space. “Those forms took me forever the first time, but after this, you’ll never have to do it again.”

“Uh, not the first time,” Isaac says hastily. “Here for the first time though.” The guy opposite him nods at him and smiles. His eyes are this warm brown colour and he looks like the kind of person who’s never been angry at anyone in their life.

“You wanna hear a song?” he asks and Isaac looks up at him from where he’s turned back to his forms.

“Hmm?” he says and the guy is holding out his earphones for Isaac to take and it’s a little weird. “Oh, uh—I gotta fill out the forms,” Isaac says, gesturing towards the sheets of paper in front of him.

“Oh, right, yeah. Totally,” he says. “Sorry.” He sits quietly for a minute and Isaac manages to write down the name of at least three drugs before he’s talking again. “You could listen while you write though, right?”

Isaac’s got the feeling from this guy that he’s not going to give up and so he sighs and takes the earphones from him and the song is nice, sure. There’s a guy’s voice crooning over the speakers and a soft lilting guitar in the background, but it’s not life changing or anything. Maybe he’s a music snob, that would probably explain it. It sounds like something someone would listen to while they drink tea and read classics and smoke cigarettes. But this guy sitting next to him doesn’t look like one of those dirty hipsters that he sees in coffee shops in Florida. He’s wearing a logo t shirt and converse and jeans that aren’t even cuffed. “It’s nice,” Isaac says, pulling the headphones out of his ears and handing them back.

“Worth it, yeah?” the guy asks and Isaac shrugs. “I know the guy who sings this. He asked me to be his guitarist in the band, but then he slept with my best friend’s girlfriend and never called her again so I was the bigger person and gave up fame to be a good mate. Worst decision I ever made man, they’re like, totally famous now.”

Isaac can feel how wide his eyes are and he doesn’t really know what to say, so he just nods, says, “Yeah, that sucks.” And goes back to filling out his forms.

“I’m Scott by the way,” the guy says, offering his hand out to shake and Isaac is almost done with the forms and he looks up and smiles because it’s polite.

“Isaac.”

“Nice to meet you Isaac,” Scott says, grinning like Isaac is the best person he’s ever met in his life. “At the shrink’s office.” He laughs. “What are you here for anyway, no to be like, nosy or anything. Man, I’m really nosy.”

“I’m back for a few days. Missing my appointment at home so my brother booked me in here,” Isaac says. He doesn’t really worry about it—giving up this information freely. It’s not like he’s ever going to see this guy again. “You?”

Scott smiles at him. “I’m—”

“Isaac Lahey?” the receptionist says and Isaac looks up. “Dr Hale can see you now.”

Isaac thinks he sits through the doctor’s questions pretty well. He’s used to this—to talking to people he barely knows about the intimate details of his life and his emotions. The doctor opposite him is pretty young and he’s making corny doctor jokes, like he’s trying to lighten the mood but Isaac doesn’t really have a mood to be lightened, so it’s a bit of a lost cause, really. He doesn’t actually look like a doctor at all. He’s well built and appears to spend more time lifting weights than pouring over study books.

“You’re on all these drugs?” the doctor asks, looking down at a piece of paper. Isaac recognises it as one of the forms that he filled out in the waiting room. “When did you start on Lithium?”

“Uh, when I was eighteen, I think,” Isaac says. He’s been adding drugs to his psychological profile for years. But Lithium was the first, so he knows exactly when he started off on it—right when he moved to Florida and got away from his dad.

“Do these help you?” the doctor asks and Isaac shrugs. Sometimes he forgets to take them and he’s got a headache by the end of the day, but that’s about it. He doesn’t remember taking the drugs this morning and he’s not that worried about it, honestly.

“No,” he says finally. He shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “I mean—I don’t know.” The doctor is looking at him carefully, like he’s scared Isaac is going to snap at any second, but that’s never happened before in his twenty four years of life. “It’s recently occurred to me that I might not even have a problem.”

“Oh?”

“Well I’ve been on these drugs for so long that I don’t even know if I need to be anymore.” He sighs. “I think my doctor back home doesn’t want me to go off them because he’s scared of what might happen.”

“That’s probably wise,” the doctor says and Isaac nods.

“I mean, I didn’t take them this morning and I feel fine.”

“I wouldn’t advise that Mr Lahey.”

And that’s fine, but Isaac doesn’t really have it in him to tell the doctor that he’s never been that good at following advice. It’s not like a psychiatrist is going to sit there and tell him that he’s all better. They want to milk his mental health problems for all they’re worth. A patient isn’t really worth anything if there’s nothing wrong with them. “Can people force me?” Isaac asks and the doctor frowns.

“Force you to do what?”

“To take them—the drugs,” he explains, trapping his hands between his knees so that they’ll stop shaking.

“Don’t stop taking them,” the doctor says and Isaac wants to be angry about it, but he can’t be.

Isaac decides then and there that he wants to start feeling things again.

 

/

 

Isaac sees Scott waiting at the bus stop across the street when he walks out of the clinic. He’s got his headphones in and he’s properly bopping along to the music. He looks totally unaware, his eyes closed and his hands resting on his knees while his taps his foot and nods his head. There’s an old woman sitting next to him at the bus stop and she’s sitting really still like she’s trying not to panic and run the fuck away from the mental guy sitting next to her who’s having some sort of silent dance party. Isaac grins and crosses the street.

“Hey,” he says, loudly, so Scott can hear him over the music.

His eyes snap open and he sees Isaac standing over him and he smiles. “Sup man?” he asks, standing up. “You on your way home now?”

“Yeah.”

“Sweet, you can walk me. I’m only a few blocks down. Usually I get the bus because there’s this cute guy who catches the bus at this time and every week he signs me a new digit of his phone number, but I guess I could manage to go without. I’m at digit number eight. I’m like two weeks away from phone sex.”

Isaac has got absolutely no clue what Scott is on about so he ignores it and starts walking towards the end of the street. Scott falls into step beside him, one earphone dangling out of his ear so he can listen and talk at the same time. “So why were you really at the shrink?” Isaac asks and Scott shrugs.

“I’m in a sexual relationship with the nurse,” Scott says and Isaac raises an eyebrow.

“Do you lie a lot?”

“How did you even know that was a lie? Was it my face? Do I not look like the kind of person who could be in a relationship with a sexy nurse?”

Isaac laughs. “That nurse is dating my brother.”

“Damn,” Scott says. “I need to pick my victims better.”

Isaac doesn’t really feel like he’s been victimised, but Scott doesn’t really look like he feels that bad about it, is still smiling and nodding along to whatever song he’s listening to. “You have a lot of those?”

“What? Victims?” Isaac nods. “I could say no. But I could be lying if I said no, I mean—how would you know? My name might not even be Scott. It could be _Megatron_. Man, I wish my name was Megatron.”

“I guess I could decide to trust you,” Isaac says. And for some reason, he sort of already does.

“Can you do that, do you think?” Scott asks and his eyes are filled with this earnest curiosity, like this conversation is the most interesting he’s ever had in his life. “Just—just decide to trust someone? I always thought that was a thing that you, like, had to earn or whatever.” He sidesteps down a narrow street and turns back to Isaac. “You coming?” he asks, but he doesn’t really give him a choice.

“Do you do this a lot?” Isaac asks. “Make strangers walk you home?”

“First time actually. So don’t rob my house or anything, you’d ruin it for the rest of the strangers in your wake who might one day offer to walk me home. I’d be scarred.” He grins though. “Besides, my step dad works for the FBI and I’m ninety percent sure he has a license to kill.”

Isaac kind of looks at Scott like he’s crazy then, which isn’t fair probably. Because Isaac is a little crazy himself. So he laughs instead and reaches out a fist to knock into Scott’s shoulder. “You’re such a liar.”

“I always feel bad afterwards and admit that they’re lies. And I’m bad at it. People always know when I’m lying. I’m actually a pretty crappy liar for someone who does it so much…”

“That’s kinda odd, you know that right?” Isaac says as Scott stops in front of a block of apartments and punches in the code to let the two of them through the gate.

“I know. I’m weird, man.” It’s stopped raining and Scott smiles at him and his eyes are warm, sunlight pouring across his skin. “You want to come in?”

 

/

 

“So,” Scott says, tucking his hands into his pockets and shrugging his shoulders up. “This is my place.”

They’ve walked right into the kitchen and it looks exactly like the kind of place that a guy in his twenties would live in—a little crappy and messy, but not falling apart. It’s cleaner than Isaac’s apartment, but somehow, it manages to look more lived in. There are actual photos stuck to the fridge with those magnet sets made up of a ton of dirty words. There are a few sentences strung out on the fridge too.

“ _Pummel all the muff muncher dwarves_ ,” he reads and Scott blushes a bit, laughing nervously.

“I swear that is the work of my totally lame roommate.” He grins and Isaac gets this funny feeling in his chest and can’t help but smile back. This guy is kind of weird and if the poetry strung across the fridge in wonky magnets is anything to go by, he also lives with someone _very_ weird, but Isaac can’t really find it in himself to care. “He should be home actually,” Scott says. “Hang on, I’ll just— _Stiles_!” he breaks off to yell out through the house and Isaac’s eyebrows fly to the top of his head in surprise.

Scott is hanging out of the kitchen door and he opens his mouth to yell again when Isaac sees a door down the hall fly open and someone stick their head out. “ _What_?” the guy asks, his forehead creased in a frown and then he sees Isaac over Scott’s shoulder and his face sort of smoothes itself over and he waves. “Oh, hey man. I’m Stiles.”

“Isaac,” Isaac says and Scott is smiling and looking between the two of them like this is the best thing that’s ever happened in the world.

Stiles waves again and disappears back inside his room and Scott turns to Isaac. “I knew you two would get along,” he says and Isaac is about to ask how Scott can come to these kinds of conclusions without even really knowing Isaac and also he doesn’t really count an amiable introduction (that was pretty standard interaction, really) as _getting on really well_ , but Scott is already talking again. “Wanna see my room?”

“Is that a proposition?” Isaac jokes and Scott goes red.

“I swear I’m not hitting on you dude,” he says quickly. “Trust me. Once, I was helping this old neighbour of mine take his shopping into his house and his creepy daughter started trying to seduce me and when I went into her room it was filled with jars of these weird plants. You know—I’m pretty sure they were flesh eating. So, yeah, I’ve been on the wrong end of unwanted propositioning before. Wouldn’t do that to you.”

Isaac doesn’t really know whether to believe what Scott is telling him so he just shrugs one shoulder and follows him towards the back of the apartment.

“That’s not true, by the way,” Scott says. “I’m pretty sure flesh eating plants are illegal in the States so it’d be pretty concerning if they _were_ the kind of plants that, like, eat your skin.”

“Oh,” Isaac says, because what do you even say to that kind of information?

“Anyway,” Scott continues, pushing open the door to his room and pulling Isaac in with a firm hold on the sleeve of his jumper before closing the door behind him. “This is it!”

His room looks like any other room to Isaac. There’s a bunch of clothes strewn on the floor and the bed hasn’t been made properly—the blanket is just thrown over the top of the rest of the crumpled up sheets and the duvet is twisted around. There are photos around the room too—of Scott and various people. He sees Stiles in a lot of them, even the photos from high school and it’s crazy that they’re still friends with each other so many years later because Isaac never really thought it was normal to be friendly with people for more than as long as it was convenient. He hasn’t kept any of his friends from high school. It’s not exactly his fault though. They haven’t kept him either. “It’s nice,” he says finally because Scott is looking at him expectantly.

“You like it?”

Isaac nods, his eyes scanning the shelves of books that are spilling out and piled up on the floor. Either this guy reads a lot or likes to pretend he reads a lot. There’s a pile of papers on Scott’s desk and a fishbowl and—“I think your fish is dead.”

Scott looks at Isaac like his life is flashing before his eyes and jumps up off the bed, moving towards the desk. His shoulders slump like his whole body is frowning and he groans. “Man!” he says. “I can never make them last for more than like, three months… _tops_!”

“Why do you keep buying them?” Isaac asks and Scott shrugs.

“I dunno, it’s cool having someone to talk to who doesn’t talk back. Stiles has known me for forever so I can’t feed him stories about my past that aren’t exactly true. I practise my lies on my fish.”

Isaac thinks that is probably the weirdest thing he’s ever heard and he actually lets out a laugh picturing Scott pacing back and forth in his room, talking to no one as he strings together intricate tales that are so far fetched that they can’t possibly be true. But Scott actually looks a little upset about his fish dying like one of those little kids who just dropped their ice cream and it’s the whole sharp intake of breath before they start wailing about it moment so Isaac steps forwards and puts a hand on his shoulder and says. “I’m really sorry about your fish.”

“It’s okay,” Scott says. “I just hate this part, you know, the whole—uh, flushing the fish down the toilet part. It’s so unceremonious.”

“We could bury it in the yard?” Isaac suggests but Scott just sighs, shakes his head.

“Nah.” He picks up the fishbowl and heads for the door, cocking his head for Isaac to follow him. “We don’t have much of a garden. Stiles gets pissed whenever I try to make a big deal out of it anyways.”

Isaac follows Scott into the bathroom and tries to figure out a way for the two of them to fit in there comfortably. The toilet itself is tucked in behind the door and Isaac ends up perched on the sink, his legs swinging out underneath it and kicking against the cupboard door. Scott is holding the fishbowl above the toilet and he looks torn, like he can’t actually bring himself to dump the water in there and Isaac wonders for a minute how on earth he ended up back in his old town with a random guy he’s never met, in his apartment, flushing a fish down the toilet. But he’s not complaining.

“You want me to do it?” Isaac asks and Scott shakes his head.

“It’s fine,” he says, finally finding it in him to tip the bowl so that the water sloshes into the toilet and splashes up a little onto the toilet seat. Isaac wrinkles his nose and Scott sighs. Isaac’s thinking about how he feels the same sort of connection with this pseudo-funeral as he did yesterday at his own dad’s funeral and how there’s probably something wrong with that. But he’s not exactly an expert on funerals—has only been to three in his life really. “Usually I say a few words,” Scott says quietly, turning to look at Isaac. “Oh, what’re—what’re you thinking about?”

“Just been thinking I’ve been going to a lot of these things lately,” Isaac says and Scott raises his eyebrows.

“What, dates?” he asks and Isaac laughs because he’s not an expert on dates either, but he’s pretty sure that meeting some guy at a shrink and walking him home while he gets fed a steady stream of absurdities doesn’t really count as a date.

“No, idiot,” he says. “Funerals.” Scott raises an eyebrow and Isaac clears his throat awkwardly. “My, uh…my dad just died. And well, yeah—that’s why I’m home actually.”

Scott just looks at him for a moment and he’s got that super sad look in his eyes again and then he says. “Wow…and I’m putting you through another one of these? Sorry dude. Wait—are you one of those people who hates it when people say they’re sorry about your loved ones dying? Because I’ve heard those exist. Actually, I once met this guy whose wife just threw herself off a cliff and I said I was sorry about it and when he jumped off the same cliff three weeks later he haunted me for like a month before he got bored.”

“Yeah,” Isaac says and Scott nods.

“Okay.” There’s a beat of silence and then he’s talking again. “That was a lie by the way. The whole thing, not even just part of it—I think I tell lies when I don’t know what else to say.”

“That’s okay,” Isaac says, swinging his legs out to touch the opposite wall. And it _is_ okay. He doesn’t think he really minds it when Scott comes out with these random stories.

“What happened to your dad?”

It’s a pretty blunt question, but Isaac doesn’t mind. He’s only been off his meds for half a day and he’s kinda just riding on what’s left of the numb that he’s been feeling for so long. “Cancer,” he says finally. And he thinks that’s enough, but Scott is still looking at him like he wants to know the _story_ and for the first time, Isaac wishes that he knew more about what happened with his dad in the months leading up to his death. Because the last thing he wants to look like is the kind of kid who ignores all his brother’s calls about updates on his dad’s health and doesn’t care whether or not the chemo is working or his dad is getting better. But that’s sort of exactly the kind of kid he is.

“He’d had it for years,” Isaac says. “And his body just gave up on itself in the end. It’s not like—I mean, we were all ready for it.”

“Doesn’t really make it any easier though,” Scott says and he looks a little teary, which is ridiculous because it’s not like it’s a tragedy. This kind of stuff, it happens everyday and the world keeps moving.

“It kinda does a bit, though.”

Scott looks at him long and hard and he’s actually biting his lip now, like that’s the only thing that’s stopping him from breaking down then and there. “You don’t seem that sad for someone who’s dad just died,” he says and Isaac laughs.

“You seem pretty sad for someone who’s dad _didn’t_ just die.”

“Sorry,” Scott says quickly. “That was insensitive. I get that people deal with their grief in different ways. Some people refuse to talk about it or start a diary or go travelling for three years and never actually come back. When my mum’s sister died, my mum started baking and I swear I could actually taste her emotions in those cakes, man. The _I’m feeling sad today so please can you do the dishes even though I made all the mess_ cake was my favourite. She only made it like twice though. So I guess that’s good. Because I freaking hated doing the dishes.”

“You talk a lot,” Isaac says.

“I know. Would you believe that’s actually a true story?” Scott says and Isaac laughs. “Okay, sorry. Let’s flush the damned fish.”

 

/

 

It’s dark by the time Isaac gets home that evening, taking the steps on the porch two at a time and he forgets about the loose step, slips a little bit before regaining his footing and in that split second, he feels like the whole world has dropped from underneath him.

“How’d it go today?” Camden asks when he walks in the door. He’s sitting at the kitchen table with Lacey and the two of them are holding hands. Lacey looks like she’s been crying a bit and Isaac sighs. There’s a bowl of fruit in the middle of the table and he counts three bananas and four apples before Cam clears his throat expectantly.

“Yeah, it was fine,” he says finally, moving towards the fridge to get himself some juice. The fridge is full of useless finger food that’s left over from the wake the previous afternoon and Isaac has to dig around a bit to find the juice box that he knows is hidden in the back of the fridge somewhere. He finds it behind a Tupperware tub of hummus and sticks the straw in through the top, leaning against the counter to sip at it.

“Did Dr Hale sort out any prescriptions for you?” Lacey asks and she’s nice, Isaac decides. She means well at the very least. “Because I can sort those out for you. I have to go to the drug store tomorrow anyway, so anything you need, just ask?”

“Nah,” Isaac says. “That’s okay. No prescriptions necessary.”

“So what did he say?” Camden asks and Isaac feels a bit like this is turning into an interrogation.

“Not sure that’s any of your business to be honest,” he says.

Cam rolls his eyes and gestures towards the stove. “There’s pasta in there if you want it. Lacey cooked, but there’s heaps of leftovers so help yourself.”

Isaac steps towards the stove and inspects the bolognaise that’s set on a low temperature to keep warm. The cheese in the sauce looks a bit lumpy, but it doesn’t smell too bad so he looks up and smiles. “Thanks,” he says and Lacey smiles at him like he’s just told her he thinks of her as his sister or something equally as emotional.

Isaac gets that he doesn’t give people a lot to work with, but really, it’s a bit far fetched.

“Are you going to be around for the reading of the will next week?” Camden asks when Isaac sits down at the table with a bowl of pasta.

“I’m leaving on Thursday,” Isaac says. Five days back home is long enough for him, really and he’s already texted Lydia to get her to book flights for Thursday afternoon back into Florida.

“That’s a no then?” Camden asks and he’s disappointed, Isaac can tell. So he just shrugs and goes back to his pasta, shovelling it into his mouth fast enough that Lacey and Cam give up on trying to engage him in conversation.

Isaac pauses and wipes his fingers against his mouth to get rid of the pasta sauce that he’s smeared there while eating. “You know, if you guys ever get married, your name will be Lacey Lahey.” Camden sighs and Lacey raises an eyebrow. “Yeah,” Isaac says. “Let that bombshell sink in.”

 

/

 

Scott texts him at eight in the morning the next day and Isaac still isn’t used to getting up early, so it wakes him up and he’s almost too lazy to read it. Almost.

_stiles gave me his jeep for the day. get dressed im pickin u up we r going 4 a picnic :-) xx_

Isaac groans and lets the phone onto the bed next to him and he wonders why he’s even considering this idea—getting in a car with a random guy that he barely knows and letting him drive him god knows where for the day. But despite his better judgement, he rolls over and texts Scott his address a few minutes later and then he pulls himself out of bed.

“So, where are we going?” he asks when he and Scott are in the car, already five minutes out of town.

“The woods,” he says.

“There’s something very kidnapper-ish about this whole thing,” Isaac comments and Scott looks over from where he’s sitting behind the wheel and grins at him.

“Yeah, this kid was taken out here a few years ago when he was jogging. They found him tied up to a tree after like a week. I’m pretty sure he died of starvation, but that’s malicious.” Isaac raises an eyebrow. “That’s a totally true story by the way, but I figured—safety in numbers. No one’s gonna try and tie up two guys in their twenties. Unless there’s a group of them.”

“I’m starting to regret agreeing to this,” Isaac says, but he’s smiling a little bit.

“No, come on,” Scott says and his pout is crafted to perfection. Isaac makes a mental note to ask him if he practises in the mirror some time. “I brought a blanket. I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

Isaac is full on grinning now and it hurts his face, but it’s not too bad. “I literally haven’t been able to say no to peanut butter sandwiches since I was eight.”

“Yes!” Scott cheers, pulling into a park that people use as a base when they’re taking hikes through the woods. “I’ve cracked the code. You are forever at my mercy now, bro. I hold the one key to unravel you—this is pretty vital information, I think you’ve probably made a grave mistake today Isaac.”

Isaac is too busy thinking about how Scott’s bright eyed smile is doing a pretty good job of unravelling him anyway to respond to Scott as the two of them hop out of the car. He doesn’t think it matters, though. Not if the way Scott is still grinning at him is anything to go by.

 

/

 

“You don’t smile a lot,” Scott says.

They’re lying back on the blanket next to each other and when Isaac looks at him, he’s got all these mottled shadows on his face from the trees obscuring the sunlight. Isaac wants to reach a hand up, to trace an outline of the leaves on Scott’s face with the tip of his finger. And maybe pull aside his baggy t shirt so he can follow the pattern onto his collarbones that are only just peeking out, making shadows of their own.

“Yeah,” Isaac says. “Not really.”

“Why not?” Scott asks. “I mean, do you seriously just _never_ smile?”

“Not never,” Isaac says, letting his face fall into a cheesy grin and nudging Scott in the ribs with his elbow to get him to look over at him. Scott snorts and pokes Isaac’s cheek, turning back to look up at the trees.

“Not like that, loser,” he says. “Like a proper smile because something’s funny or makes you happy.”

Isaac shrugs and says, “I guess I don’t have that much to laugh about.”

“Not even yourself? Like, you don’t ever stack it in your apartment back home and no one’s there to see it but you’re just cracking up because you’re such a clutz and it’s _so funny_ because that happens to me all the time when Stiles is out, you know. I mean, I’m not the most coordinated guy and once I slipped in the shower and pulled the whole railing off and I was so embarrassed man I made up this elaborate lie about how we were robbed when I was in the shower and I got into a naked scuffle with the burglar.” He’s laughing now, his eyes crinkling in the corners as he tells the story. “Stiles saw right through the lie and he didn’t even think it was funny when I admitted to slipping, so I guess it wasn’t even worth it but it was so funny at the time, I swear to God.”

“Are you always this happy?” Isaac asks and it sounds like an accusation, so he adds, “Not that it’s a bad thing. Kinda refreshing actually.”

“Nah,” Scott says after a second and he rolls over to face Isaac on the blanket. “Life kinda sucks when you take everything too seriously though. I look forwards to a good cry every now and then. I save up the tears for three months and then my fish dies and the waterworks come out.”

“I haven’t cried since I was eighteen,” Isaac says, rolling onto his side so that he can face Scott properly. Their arms are next to each other and the shadows of the leaves above them are merging over their skin. It’s the closest Isaac has felt to someone for a while. “I didn’t cry at my own dad’s funeral. And that was probably the saddest I’ve felt in years. But it wasn’t even because he was gone, you know? I was just sad about how numb I felt about it.”

“Numb?” Scott asks. And as he says it, he hooks his pinky finger through Isaacs. He’s blushing a bit in the sun and Isaac thinks he’s never met anyone so wonderful in his life. He nods because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Hey, my friend wants me to come over to her place tonight,” he says when they’re on the way home. “You wanna come?”

“Yeah sure,” Scott says. “Can I bring Stiles?”

 

/

 

Stiles is leaning against Erica’s couch and the movie has finished and she’s smoking a joint, had offered one puff to Stiles and now he’s out of his mind, yabbering on about nothing at all useful. “—and then my mum died. Cancer, so you know all about that, right Isaac? I mean—I can’t really believe you’re here because when it happened to me I don’t think I left my room for two weeks. Just stayed in there and cried for days and I lost a whole heap of weight and my dad thought I was gonna _die_ or something.”

Scott mouths _sorry_ at Isaac, like he feels bad for telling Stiles about Isaac’s dad. But it doesn’t really matter. He doesn’t care because he hadn’t told Scott not to tell anyone. It’s not meant to be a secret. “He wasn’t the best dad,” Isaac says. “I mean, it’s not like I didn’t love him, but I sort of beat him half to death one time when I was eighteen.” He breaks off and looks around the room, which is quiet now. Stiles is biting his lip like he’s trying to stop some sort of word vomit and Erica is looking at her feet because she knows about this. And Scott is staring at Isaac like he’s never been so worried about someone in his whole life. “So, there’s that.”

“You wanna tell us about it?” Stiles asks and despite the fact that Scott’s glaring at Stiles like he’s just said the complete wrong thing, it’s funny because Isaac doesn’t think anyone has ever asked him that. To just…tell them about it. It’s always about the psychology behind it and this is refreshing and he’s a little panicky and thinking about it is scary, sure, but he probably needs this.

“He used to hit me sometimes,” Isaac says quietly. And Erica snaps her head up because she doesn’t know about this part of the story. “Like when I got bad grades or when I didn’t clean up after myself. Mostly I think it was because I wasn’t as good as Camden—as my brother,” he says, explaining for Scott and Stiles. “I mean—my mum died giving birth to me and I don’t think my dad ever forgave me for it.”

“Dude,” Isaac says and Scott leans over to whack him in the chest, which—well, fair enough. Isaac kinda laughs though because Stiles is pretty good at saying the wrong thing and it’s almost comical.

“I dunno, I guess I just got sick of it and I was just…I was so angry. So I—” He breaks off and looks at the hands that he’s wringing together in his lap. He doesn’t want to say it again because he feels like a bit of a monster. Even though he knows it’s not true deep down. He still feels like it’s his fault—like he should have been able to withstand it just a little longer.

“So you hit back,” Erica says quietly and Isaac looks up at her, grateful. He smiles at her and she nods at him, smiling back sympathetically.

“That’s when I moved away. I just packed up my shit and left without saying goodbye. I saw a shrink for the first time in my life two weeks after I moved to Florida and she put me on my first lot of antidepressants.”

“And you haven’t been home since,” Erica says sadly and he shakes his head.

“Haven’t been home since.”

“Until _now_?” Stiles ask. Isaac nods. “For his _funeral_?”

“Right.”

“That’s dark, man,” he says and Isaac chuckles.

Erica says, “Stiles, shut the _fuck_ up,” and throws a pillow at him and Isaac’s properly laughing now, his head thrown back and his eyes shut and his stomach hurts a little bit but it’s a good kind of hurt and he feels like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders.

Scott comes and sits down next to him a few minutes later and presses the side of his body against Isaac’s, leaning back against the couch.

“What’s going on in there?” he asks, tapping Isaac’s temple gently. His eyes are sad and it’s not _pity_ , which is good because Isaac doesn’t want pity. Scott’s eyes just look like they’re frustrated that he can’t help in any way. And that’s kind of funny because Isaac thinks that he’s actually doing a pretty good job of it. 

“Just thinking about how I’m glad you’re here. I mean—I’m glad I met you.”

“Yeah?” Scott asks.

“Yeah,” Isaac says quietly, leaning in close to whisper, “I like you,” into the crook of Scott’s neck.

He pulls back to look at Isaac and he looks surprised, but he’s smiling this huge smile that looks so goofy but lovely at the same time and Isaac wants to kiss him. He’s never wanted to kiss anyone so badly in his entire life. But that smile looks so gorgeous—so he thinks he can hold off for now if it means he gets to look at Scott for a bit longer when his eyes are shining so bright.

 

/

 

Scott takes Isaac with him when he and Stiles go to a music store on Wednesday. “I want to have a look at investing in a bass,” he explains when he shows up at Isaac’s place unannounced with Stiles behind the wheel, waving at him from the car. “And I need your opinions re: colours etcetera.”

“I don’t know anything about guitars.”

“I said _colours_ ,” Scott says and he sounds exasperated as he drags Isaac out of the house by the cuff of his sleeve. “I’ve got the actual guitar part covered.”

The music store is this little place in the middle of town on the main street. Isaac has never seen it in his life and he walked past this spot everyday to get to his bus stop when he was still going to school here. It’s small though and it doesn’t even look like a shop from the outside, just a wooden door and a small window that you can see a drum kit through if you squint. Maybe if you were _looking_ for a drum kit you’d be able to spot it. “Here?” Isaac asks and Stiles sighs.

“We don’t have time for your snobbery Isaac. We have guitars to buy.”

Like he said, Isaac doesn’t know anything about guitars, so he just sort of tries to take up as little space as possible while the guy behind the counter comes out and starts talking to Scott and Stiles about the kind of things they’re looking for. Stiles just wants an acoustic to replace the one he stepped on a few months ago, but Scott is looking to buy something he’s never even learnt to play. “I mean, I know how to play a normal electric,” he says to the guy. “So I guess something that’s easy to learn on.”

Stiles leans against the wall next to Isaac and says, “We’re gonna start a band.”

“Yeah, because I was a good friend and passed up on joining _The Doves_ because the lead singer fucked you around.” He turns to look at Isaac. “The band I told you about at the doctor, remember?”

“I thought that was a lie,” Isaac says at the same time as Stiles scoffs.

“Dude, you do _not_ even want to be in a band with a name as lame as _The Doves_.” He’s laughing and Isaac grins because it’s sort of true. It’s a shitty name and the band wasn’t even that great if he’s honest. He only remembers feeling underwhelmed with the song when Scott showed it to him.

Scott frowns at both of them, but his lips are turning up at the corners like he’s trying to hide a smile. “I’ll try this one out,” he says to the guy who’s trying to help him pick an instrument and the assistant plugs it into the amp so that Scott can pluck at the strings a little bit, trying to figure out the similarities and differences between a bass guitar and his normal electric.

“I wish I knew how to use this so I could play you something,” he says after a few minutes, looking up at Isaac.

“That’s okay,” Isaac says and he’s trying not to give away the fact that his heart feels like it’s about to beat the fuck out of his chest.

“I can play you something on my _actual_ guitar some time,” Scott says and then turns to face the shop assistant. “I’ll take this by the way, man.”

“C’mon,” Isaac says. “I want to show you some place.”

“I am such a third wheel,” Stiles mumbles and Isaac is laughing as Scott hands over his credit card.

 

/

 

“What even is this place?” Stiles asks when he pulls up at the top of what Isaac has always just called _The Hill_.

“I used to come here a lot,” Isaac says. “When I was a kid and my dad punched me up real bad, I’d ride my bike up here and stay for a few hours. I used to think this hill was mine.”

Scott shuffles a bit closer to him where he’s leaning against the car and curls his fingers around Isaac’s wrist, which is nice. Stiles just widens his eyes and says, “You _rode your bike_ up this hill? Dude, that’s like…superhuman athleticism.”

“ _Stiles_ ,” Scott says, all exasperated, but Isaac is laughing again.

“Yeah, well I was all hopped up on adrenaline usually,” he says, tucking his hand into his pocket when Scott lets go of it and moves over to the edge of the hill. There’s a sharp drop on the edge and everything beyond that is just white fog that settles at around midday everyday during the fall in Beacon Hills. It usually clears up by around sunset, but right now, it’s blocking any view that the three of them would usually have of the town from up this high.

“Don’t get too close to the edge,” Isaac calls out and Scott laughs it off, taking a step closer and Isaac tries to be calm about it. It’s not like if he slipped, he’d fall. He’s still too far away from the edge for that. But there’s not a fence there to hold him back and it’s still alarming.

“Scared I’m gonna fall?” Scott calls back, pretending like he’s going to jump, jerking forwards in a mock dive.

“Scott!” Isaac yells, a bit pissed off really that Scott’s mucking him around like this. Because it’s a joke, but it’s not funny. He strides forwards and pulls Scott back, maybe a little too roughly. And the smile slips off Scott’s face, falling away into the fog and Isaac feels a bit bad, but really, he doesn’t want Scott anywhere where he could get hurt.

“Calm down man, It’s just Scott being a dick,” Stiles says, coming up to stand next to them.

“Yeah, sorry,” Isaac says, scrubbing a hand over his face and he blushes a bit because he’s overreacting.

“He was protecting me,” Scott says, smiling again. “I’m pretty much a damsel in distress.” He stands on his tip toes and kisses Isaac on the cheek quickly, grinning.

“Oh, that’s cute, really,” Stiles says while Isaac tries to fight the flush that he’s pretty sure is taking over his whole face. “While you two are busy making moon eyes at each other, I’ll just be over here throwing myself off the edge of a cliff.”

“You probably don’t want to do that,” Isaac says. “Scott will have war flashbacks about the time he was haunted by some kind of suicidal ghost.”

“Oh my God,” Scott says, gaping at him like he can’t believe Isaac is relaying one of his ridiculous stories to Stiles. Maybe it’s just weird that he’s been paying such close attention.

“Seriously, Scott,” Stiles says, groaning a little. “You can do better than that man. At least make your lies slightly believable.”

Scott looks outraged and punches Stiles in the shoulder. Stiles retaliates by digging his fingers into Scott’s ribs and Scott goes down like timber, falling to the rough dirt on the ground and curling up in a ball, not even trying to fight Stiles off as he tickles every inch of him he can get at.

Isaac makes his way towards the edge of the mountain and looks out and there’s just _nothing_ out there. Everything above and below them is completely obscured by fog or mist or whatever it is that’s descended over Beacon Hills this time in the afternoon and it’s exactly how he feels inside really, all empty and foggy, but like maybe it’s starting to clear. And he wants to fill the empty space with something. So he screams.

And he’s standing there, yelling out into the space that he’s slowly filling with a sound that’s completely new when he feels arms wrapped around his waist and someone is screaming into his ear, which is uncomfortable, but he’s okay with it. Because Scott’s warm arms are around his waist and Stiles is behind them somewhere and he’s yelling too and Isaac turns around and looks at Scott. He’s looking right at him and yelling in his face now, but he stops when he meets Isaac’s eyes.

And so Isaac kisses him.

Scott’s hair is a little damp from standing in the fog and his hands are digging into Isaac’s wrists, holding his hands so tightly that Isaac thinks he could fall backwards and Scott would hold him upright. And while he can feel himself kissing all his sadness and fear into Scott, Scott’s kissing possibility and hope back into him.

When they pull apart Isaac grins sheepishly at Stiles who is scuffing his feet in the dirt a bit behind them and he rolls his eyes and spins on his heels, walking back towards his jeep. Scott laughs and lets go of one of Isaac’s hands, pulling him back to the car with him.

“Can you drop us at Isaac’s place?” he asks Stiles and Stiles rolls his eyes again when the two of them hop into the back seat and pull a blanket over themselves. Scott’s still holding his hand and Isaac can feel sadness crawling into his bones because he’s been off the drugs for two days now, but he thinks that there’s happiness there too.

And he’s okay with it.

 

/

 

They’re sitting curled up in Isaac’s old childhood bed. There’s not really enough room for the two of them in there because it’s only a single, but they’re making it work.

“I didn’t actually hate him,” Isaac says quietly and Scott looks at him before he lets his head fall onto Isaac’s shoulder.

“Mm?” Scott hums, shuffling a little closer and hooking his ankle around Isaac’s.

“I mean—he’d do nice things for me sometimes. Like he bought me this Superman lunchbox for my birthday once. And I never used to mention stuff that I wanted around him because he’d say I always ask for too much and I probably said it once—said how cool it would be to have a Superman lunchbox.” He breaks off for a second and sighs. “And so he bought it for me for my birthday and I thought _he loves me_ , you know? Like, he does bad stuff, but deep down, he cares about whether or not I’m happy some of the time.”

Scott nods against his chest, his hair tickling Isaac’s neck. “It’s not a bad thing to love someone who does awful things,” he says and Isaac smiles into Scott’s hair.

“Yeah, but then I lost the lunchbox a month later and he gave me a black eye for it, so—” he trails off, his words getting stuck in his throat. He feels like he’s swallowed something bad and it’s hands are all inside of him, squeezing him from the inside out and scratching him raw—rearranging his bones so that his body won’t work properly anymore. “Fuck, this hurts so much,” he says quietly.

“I know,” Scott says, wrapping an arm around Isaac’s waist and pulling himself in and he’s so warm against Isaac’s side. Isaac thinks he’s probably falling in love with the boy against his chest and he wonders if all this intensity is because he’s just come off the drugs or if it’s going to be like this all the time from now on—this onslaught of emotions that he can barely comprehend. “That’s life though. It hurts.”

“Scott,” Isaac says. “I think I—”

“What?” Scott whispers against his throat, tilting his head to look up at him and Isaac can’t say it. Not now when he feels like he’s being ripped apart by all the pain associated with everything that’s happened with his dad. And there’s not much he can do to make himself feel better about it other than wait for it to fade a little. He thinks Scott can probably help him out in some way there

And when he leans down and kisses him, Scott twists in his grip and hoists himself up so that he’s leaning over Isaac, his hands tangled in his curly hair. “I want to make you happy,” Scott says against his lips.

Isaac pushes the hem of Scott’s shirt up so that he can span his fingers across his ribs, his skin warm under Isaac’s touch. He fits his lips against the junction of Scott’s jaw and murmurs, “You do.”

 

/

 

Cam is in bed when Isaac goes to find him on Wednesday night. He’s already packed for the airport tomorrow and Scott’s driving him in Stiles’ jeep so it’s probably the last chance he’ll get to talk to his brother before he’s back in Florida. “Hey,” he says, stepping into the room and closing the door.

His brother looks up form where his eyes are on the laptop in front of him and smiles a tight smile that isn’t properly real. “You’re leaving tomorrow, yeah?” He’s trying not to show it, but there’s something a bit like relief in his voice. Isaac doesn’t blame him for that.

“Yeah, I am. I—”

“Look, Isaac,” Cam says, closing the laptop and placing it on the bed beside him. “I found your bottles of pills in the bin.”

Isaac hadn’t been expecting an intervention before he walked in and now he just feels like an idiot. Because he never wanted to worry anyone—to make them think that he’s going off the rails or anything. Sure, he feels a little shaky, but for the first time ever, he feels like he’s got his spot _on_ the rails pretty well secured. “Yeah,” he says, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “I kinda decided to take a break from the meds.”

“How’s that going for you?” Cam asks sarcastically and Isaac can tell he’s a bit pissed off.

“Good, yeah.” His brother is looking at him with eyes that say _that’s not good enough_. So Isaac opens his mouth and let’s himself talk and—“I figured out that I’ve been numb. For years, I—I’ve been so fucking numb for so long Cam. Since I was eighteen and I don’t want it to be like that anymore.” Cam is frowning at him, but it doesn’t really matter, because Isaac has it all worked out—what he wants. “I just want to be able to _feel something_ , you know? I mean, I haven’t felt a single thing for as long as I can remember and—and I want to be able to wake up and know whether I’m not in a shitty mood. I want to be able to smile when someone does something nice for me out of the blue and it actually makes me happy. And I get that that’s probably not normal—to want to get all the pain and crap and sadness just so that I can have a little bit of silver lining on the side. But nothing about my life is normal. It hasn’t been fir six years…longer than that probably.”

“The drugs are there to stop you from getting all fucked up, though,” Camden says and Isaac laughs, shaking his head.

“I’m _already_ fucked up,” he says. “But I don’t think I’m going to get any better until I get a little more fucked up first. And I’m ready for that. I think I’m finally ready for the shitstorm.”

“Going against your doctor’s recommendations is a pretty weighty experiment, don’t you think?”

“This is my life, Cam. I can’t keep waiting for it to start. So, no, I don’t really think it’s too much to take on. My life is pretty much all I have. It’s all there is.”

Cam sighs and pats the bed next to where he’s propped up against the pillows. When Isaac sits down on the bed next to him, he pulls him into a hug and Isaac doesn’t really know where to put his hands, so he hugs back and it feels weird and there’s a clawing in his chest and he’s actually scared that he’s about to start crying.

“We’re gonna be okay,” he says. “You and me—we’re going to be fine.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow night to make sure you got home okay,” Camden says and Isaac pulls back, shaking his head.

“Nah,” he says and he smiles. “I’ll call you.”

 

/

 

“This isn’t it,” Isaac says quietly, but Scott is looking at him like he’s completely betrayed him and Isaac feels like the world is ending, which isn’t melodramatic at all because he’s pretty sure coming off the drugs cold turkey has made his emotions heightened and he’s not used to it as it is.

“Feels like it’s it,” Scott says sadly. “As _if_ you’re gonna come back.”

Isaac laughs. “I’m coming back. I can’t just leave and not come back now.”

Scott frowns at him and sticks out his bottom lip and Isaac can’t help but kiss him. “You’ll get back to Florida and realise it’s sunny over there and people are nicer and you’ll be happier there than you could ever be here. Apparently good weather improves your mood so there’s that already.”

“That’s irrelevant,” Isaac says, smiling at Scott and skimming his fingers across the soft skin of his neck.

“You can’t leave now,” Scott says. “I need you.”

“Scott—”

“I haven’t even lied in like, two days,” he says and he sounds a little desperate. Honestly, it’s breaking Isaac’s heart a bit.

“Is that true?”

Scott bites his lip. “…No.” Isaac laughs and kisses Scott’s forehead. “But I haven’t lied to _you_ since the first day I met you.”

“You’ve changed my life.” And it’s true. “I’ve known you for four days and you’ve changed my whole life Scott,” Isaac says. “I’d be an idiot to let that go, okay?”

They kiss like they’re saying goodbye and Isaac can’t make himself tell Scott he loves him because he’s terrified that he’ll leave and Scott will forget about him without the total immersion of each other that they’ve had for four days. Scott is like this _force of life_ that doesn’t need anything to survive and Isaac is scared that he’ll get sick of the guy who needs someone to lean on a bit until he finds his feet.

“I’ll see you soon?” Scott asks when Isaac stands up, picks up his bang and slings it over his shoulder.

“Bet you won’t even miss me,” he says as he hears his flight details called over the loud speaker. He points up towards the screen that they’re sitting under. “That’s me.”

Scott kisses him one last time, his fingers twisting into Isaac’s t shirt and Isaac wishes that Scott wouldn’t let him go. But he does and Isaac makes his way through the terminal towards the gate.

 

/

 

He’s imagining the plane going down before it even takes off.

He’s thinking about people desperately trying to use their phone’s to call their loved ones even though there’s no service fifteen thousand feet in the air. And he realises that if the plane goes down, he’ll go down with it and that’ll be it—he’ll never have told Scott that he’s in love with him. He’ll have wasted his last few minutes with Scott pulling away from a kiss that he wanted to hold on to.

And he can hardly breathe from how much that hurts, how much it scares him. It scares him more than the thought of Scott forgetting about him, of moving on, of maybe not loving him back even half as much as Isaac loves him. It’s all that matters, really.

So he get’s off the plane.

It’s hard to run through the terminal when he’s trying to lug a suitcase behind him and Scott isn’t where he left him, he’s probably halfway back to the car park now and it’s a miracle that Isaac even spots him in the crowd. But he’s got another of those dumb logo t shirts in and it’s coloured bright orange (who even wears bright orange and gets away with it?) and when he finally catches up to him he’s gasping for breath. But he clasps a hand onto Scott’s shoulder and spins him around and—

“I couldn’t do it.” Scott is looking at him like he’s absolutely crazy and to be honest, he _feels_ crazy, but at least it’s a feeling. “I’m in love with you. I mean—the first proper feeling I had when it all started to seep back into me was love. And I’m pretty sure all of it was directed straight at—at you. Seriously, you could open up my heart and there’d be, like, a little tiny Scott in there making himself at home.”

Scott laughs and he looks like he’s just stopped crying, but he’s still got shiny tracks on his cheeks where the tears were a second ago and Isaac leans in and kisses over them as Scott says. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t want to waste another moment of my life without you in it.”

“Okay,” Scott says. And he leans in and kisses Isaac like his whole life depends on it. His fingers are cold and they’re pressing into the skin at the back of Isaac’s neck, then they’re in his hair and he’s thinking about what’s going to happen next—about how Scott is the one thing in his life that he’s got figured out, but that doesn’t matter at all. Because there’s this crushing feeling in his chest a little like hope and a lot like panic, which isn’t ideal, sure.

But it’s something.

**Author's Note:**

> so i kind of wrote this in a day and it ended up really long and im sorry about that but this is my favourite movie ever and i deviated from the plot in some parts, but it ends up kinda the same!
> 
> i hope you liked it and you can let me know what you thought here or on [my blog](http://darlinglahey.tumblr.com) or whatever! (✿◠‿◠)


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